The Day The Grinch Got Probed – A Medical Adventure with Aimee Amodio

Aimee and I worked together as bloggers a long time ago in what seems like a galaxy far, far away. Luckily, we’ve kept in touch. She is a brilliant writer and my guest blogger today. I have to warn you – set your coffee down and do not pick it up until you are done reading. If any blog was snarf worthy, this is it! Seriously, heed my warning or your computer (or iPhone) will be snarfed on with liquid laughter. Welcome, Aimee!

Yeah, I call my uterus the Grinch. It’s because when the doctor told me I had an enlarged uterus, the only thing I could think of was that scene in How the Grinch Stole Christmas where the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes that day. But the embiggenment of my uterus meant the doctor ordered further testing.

Cue probinations!

I’d never had an ultrasound before… so I was a little nervous. A few days before the test, I had a nightmare that they were doing my ultrasound in a rotating chair, and the doctor kept yelling at me to stay still BUT I COULDN’T. Hello, rotating chair.

As it turns out, I should have been more worried about my rotating bladder.

My only prep instructions were to drink five glasses of water. I drank about 54oz, figuring at 8oz per glass, anything above 40oz was bonus. I’m an overachiever! All the drinking is because (as I read on the website), a bladder full of liquid acts as a window for the ultrasound to view the uterus. An empty bladder or bladder full of air doesn’t give as good a picture. Science is cool! And weird!

My aunt the nurse advised that I drink my last few glasses IN the waiting room so I didn’t die of having to piddle… or, as I secretly feared, piddle on the exam table. So I did about 30oz in the car, and the rest in the waiting room. And then I jiggled until they called me in.

First, I got to get nakey from the waist down. But as I was changing, I somehow managed to lose one of my shoes underneath the little bench in the dressing room, and did some half-nakey gymnastics to try to recover it. Maybe I should have put the robe on first, or something… it was a nice, long robe, by the way, with full coverage in the rear even though it just ties back there. I approve. And I’m sure the rest of the staff and patients didn’t need to see my moon hit their eye like a big pizza pie! (Apologies to my friend Sharon – who came along for moral support, and got an eyeful of half-nakey gymnastics under the dressing room door.)

Imaging scan numero uno was an exterior scan of the uterus. It went more or less like the kind they do for babies: smear the gel on the sonic doohickey, then rub it over my belly. I had to pee really bad at this point, and was dreading scan #2 (the internal scan) with a full bladder. The technician gets my undying gratitude for telling me I’d be allowed to hit the potty after scan #1!!

During the scan, she drew computer lines all over the place (like X and Y axis type) and tagged pictures things like “LONG UTERUS”. (Because long uterus is loooooooong, I guess.) The stuff on the screen didn’t look like organs to me. It was more like one of those Magic Eye pictures. I saw a piggy monster face, with a HUGE snout. At some point, I had to ask Sharon to stop being so funny, because probing + laughing was about to equal flash flooding.

After a million years of gooey gel and extreme clenching, it was time for the Best! Piddle Break! Evar! And lemme tell you, it was a long peep. I was convinced that the tech and Sharon could hear me peeping. But it turns out not, because they were distracted by their own shenanigans.

I emerge from the peepatorium to hear the tech say: “They’re called probe covers so they can charge us more for them.”
And then I see it. The Probe. White, with a bulby thing on the end, and seriously looking like it’s a mile long. (Storm Large: My Vagina is Eight Miles Wide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5U-YT-mRmI) THAT’S the one that gets inserted into my hoohoodilly in order to bring sonicy goodness to my girlbits. I think the length is a wee bit excessive. If anybody out there has a foot-long uterus, I don’t wanna know.

And it’s wearing a condom. (Ribbed for my pleasure.) (Okay, not really.)

The conversation prior to my emergence:

Tech: *rrrrrrip, roll roll roll*
Sharon: Is that a condom?
Tech: It’s a probe cover.
Sharon: Riiiiiiight.
Tech: They’re called probe covers so they can charge us more for them.

So I hop back up onto the table and get a pillow wedged under my rump. This is the part I’ve been dreading. My aunt the nurse had warned me that she had to INSERT HER OWN PROBE when she had an ultrasound of her uterus. And I was like NO WAI. For what I’m paying for this ultrasound? They better insert that probe for me. But as it turns out, lots of folks I know or know by proxy had to insert their own probes, too. FLAIL!

Lucky for me, my tech handled all the probing herself. I asked about the self-probing issue, and she said that each tech handles it differently. Some do the probing, some have the patient do the probing. It can depend on whether or not the patient can… uh… reach. Yeah, think about that mental picture for a while.

Aaanyway, I was happy to lay there and let the professional do the probing. And very glad that I had peeped.

Turns out, she only used like the top few inches of the probe, not the whole thing. Whew. For the record, my girlybits are definitely not a mile long. (I asked if I should buy her dinner, since she was probing me. She said that she should probably be buying me dinner, since I was getting probed. Hee!)

All in all, about a half hour of pantslessness, three peeps, and a lot of gooey gel and I was on my merry way again. Though the rotating chair might have been fun, I’m pretty happy with how it all went.

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